US officially holds North Korea accountable for WannaCry worm attack

TRUMP’S ADMINISTRATION has blamed North Korea for the WannaCry computer worm that affected more than 230,000 computers in homes, businesses, hospitals, schools across the world earlier this year.

Trump’s homeland security adviser, Thomas Bossert, made the accusation in the Wall Street Journal newspaper on Monday, stating that the allegation was “based on evidence”.

“The [WannaCry] attack was widespread and cost billions, and North Korea is directly responsible,” Bossert said.

“We do not make this allegation lightly. It is based on evidence. We are not alone with our findings, either.”

While he did not produce any evidence in the article, he said the US’ findings corresponded with the verdicts of other governments and private companies.

A US official familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that Trump’s administration will now be calling on “all responsible states” to counter North Korea’s ability to conduct such attacks and to implement all “relevant” United Nations Security Council sanctions.

The confirmation from the US that it holds North Korea “directly responsible” comes over six months after security outfit Symantic said it was “highly likely” North Korea was behind the attack.

In a blog post analysing the code behind the attack, Symantec said that there were strong links between the code used in the WannaCry attacks and malware tools used in attacks against Sony Pictures in 2014 and the $81m cyber-heist perpetrated against Bangladesh Bank last year.

The WannaCry 2.0 ransomware attacks made in May this year used almost exactly the same code as the WannaCry 1.0 attacks between February and April, which gained barely any traction, with the only difference the method of propagation.

WannaCry 2.0 made use of a Microsoft SMB networking protocol exploit that, for years, had been used by the US National Security Agency, until it was by the Shadow Brokers hacking group earlier this year. µ